Kids Want to Know: What is Life Really Like on Mars?

Kids often wonder what life would really be like on another planet. Mars is our next door neighbor, so it really can’t be all that different, can it?

Actually, if you were to travel to Mars by car (kind of like how you travel to your grandparents’ house) it would take nine months! That’s a long car ride! Also, the gravitational pull on Mars is much different than it is here on Earth – about 38% different. That means you would be much lighter on Mars.

Still, Mars does seem like a fun place to visit. After all, you’d have to wear a spacesuit because you can’t breathe the air on Mars. It’s made up of mostly carbon dioxide, which is the gas you breathe out here on Earth. A spacesuit with oxygen would be necessary for you to even be on Mars for any period of time because you would also need to be protected from the harmful rays of the sun.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like there’s any way for life as we know it to exist on Mars. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t keep learning about it, and it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t keep exploring it. Scientists have learned a great deal of information about not only Mars, but also about the entire solar system just by having robots explore the rocky terrain of the red planet.

If you’d like to learn more about Mars, you’ll want to ask your parents to bring you to the Wings of Eagles Discovery Center on October 11, 2014. There are going to be plenty of activities for you to do, including flying in a flight simulator, a scavenger hunt, and meeting real Martians. If space is something you’d like to learn more about, this is a great time to do it. You can get so many of your questions answered, and you can find out more information about possibly exploring the solar system yourself one day.